Actually, that's a good question, Fred. Conley said that he opposes civil disobedience, but he did not mention specific examples of people supporting civil disobedience within SFC.
Conley? Generally I would agree with Fred that until people are getting arrested, civil disobedience is not appropriate... but I would make significant exceptions. For example, in the Diebold memos example, if publishing the memos had not been fair use, people posting the memos probably would not have been subject to jail time, but they might have been subject to significant copyright damages. I still would have supported it as a civil disobedience. Another example of civil disobedience which I might support even if the stakes are low is the banning of DeCSS and its ilk. After DeCSS was ruled to be illegal to publish I may have technically broken the law by writing a giant prime number on the sidewalk which, when parsed by an unzipping program, would uncompress to be the DeCSS code. See a picture of this at <http://www.flickr.com/photos/skyfaller/129082487/>... Luke and I actually met Asheesh when he walked into one of us chalking the number. The prospect of people being fined for writing songs like "Oh Nine, Eff Nine" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9HaNbsIfp0> (for the AACS processing key to crack HD-DVDs) or for wearing a tie with the DeCSS code on it is vaguely hilarious and also great for calling attention to the problems with this attack on freedom of speech. There have also been a few examples of people actually going to jail for free culture-related reasons, such as Dmitry Sklyarov, whose imprisonment inspired Derek Slater: <http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/07/eff15-day-i-became-copyfighter>. I'm not sure Dmitry intended his action to be civil disobedience, he was probably just surprised when he was arrested while presenting research at a conference in the United States, instead of the expected scenario of a researcher being arrested in the Soviet Union. Still, if that had been civil disobedience instead of an accident, I probably would have still supported Dmitry. Peace, ~Nelson~ Fred Benenson wrote: > Wait, who said what about civil disobedience? > > And until people start getting arrested, I don't think we're there yet. > > > On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 12:18 AM, Nelson Pavlosky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > > >> There are definitely situations in which civil disobedience could be >> justified and even required, although such situations are much less >> common in the field of free culture than in the field of, say, civil >> rights. >> >> The event that lead directly to the founding of SFC, the Diebold case, >> included a civil disobedience component, although it was not one that >> Luke and I directly participated in. There were these memos that >> detailed possible problems with the voting machines which are the >> backbone of our democracy, and Diebold was trying to suppress that >> information. Luke and I took the legal route, fighting it in the >> courts, but our allies didn't want to count on the courts making the >> right call when democracy itself was on the line: they wanted to make >> sure the public got the information it needed one way or the other. >> They organized a system of mirrors on college campuses, including people >> like Asheesh Laroia and many of our earliest SFC recruits, to make sure >> the Diebold memos stayed available. Diebold had to play whack-a-mole, >> sending takedown notices to each campus, but once the mirrors on one >> campus were shut down, the memos just popped up on another campus. >> >> It actually turned out that the court agreed with us that hosting the >> Diebold memos was legal and a fair use. Therefore the "electronic civil >> disobedience" campaign had been arguably legal the whole time, and not >> actually civil disobedience. However, if the court had ruled the other >> way, the mirrors would have continued to host the Diebold memos and >> ensure public knowledge of possible flaws with our elections, even if it >> had been judged to be against the law. And I would have supported them >> in that action 100%, even if I were unable to participate myself due to >> legal reasons (I would have wanted to keep my hands "clean" during the >> appeals process, presumably). Sometimes the law is wrong, and when the >> stakes are high enough, it is best to break the law, accepting the legal >> consequences for your actions. >> >> I am not saying that SFC should necessarily ever officially organize a >> campaign involving civil disobedience. That's a question for the >> lawyers, as to what is legally possible or what is legally most >> damaging, and an ethical question of whether it would be better to let >> the organization shoulder the consequences for a civil disobedience >> action, or to let the individuals hang separately. However, I can >> easily imagine another situation where civil disobedience would be >> justified and necessary, just like the Diebold case if the court had >> ruled the other way, and it would be a discussion worth having as to >> what SFC's responsibilities are given our mission, our resources and our >> constituents, and whether SFC should knowingly break an unjust law. >> >> Peace, >> ~Nelson Pavlosky~ >> >> Clifford Conley Owens III wrote: >> >>> I hear a lot of people in this organization speak very highly of civil >>> disobedience, and it seems like some of us are just waiting for an >>> opportunity to justify breaking the law and sticking it to "the man." I >>> suppose I could right a very long-winded article on why I think civil >>> disobedience is a bad idea, but I'm not much of a writer, so I'll just >>> say a few things that come to mind. >>> >>> One example that often comes up is piracy, but I feel that that helps >>> out the mpaa/riaa far more than just boycotting it all together. I >>> suppose most of you don't know this, but I used to be on the far other >>> side of this discussion (about copyright/culture). I remember arguing >>> about copyright and piracy with someone in a philosophy class in high >>> school (and imagine me talking like a 16-year-old version of Dan >>> Glickman). I thought that everyone who disagreed with me was being >>> immature. How ironic that over four years later I became a grad student >>> and the person I was arguing with was one of my first chapter members. >>> But the thing is, I *still* think that all the people in the room who >>> disagreed were being immature! It wasn't until I discovered >>> *constructive* solutions like the FSF and CC that I really changed my >>> mind about things. >>> >>> I'm open for discussion, but if this organization ever plans a civil >>> disobedience event, you can count me out of the event, and possibly out >>> of the organization. >>> >>> ~Conley >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Discuss mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> >> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
